What is the heart of fish? Fish heart chambers

Of course, fish, and other aquatic inhabitants have a heart that has similar characteristics to the human, fulfilling its primary function of supplying the body with blood. Unlike the human system of blood circulation, fish have only one circle and that is closed. In simple birchless fish, the flow of blood occurs in straight lines, and in the higher cartilaginous - in the shape of the English letter S. This difference is due to the more complex structure of the organs of the circulatory system and different blood composition. In the beginning of the article, we will consider the heart of simple fish, and after this we turn to the amazing cartilaginous inhabitants of the water world.

Important organ

The heart is the main and main organ of any circulatory system. Fish, like man and other animals, have a heart. It may seem strange, because the fish are cold-blooded animals, unlike us. This organ is a muscular sac, which is constantly shrinking, thereby pumping blood to the entire body.

What kind of heart fish and how the blood flow occurs, you can learn by reading the information in this article.

Size of body

The size of the heart depends on the total body weight, so the larger the fish, the greater its "motor". Our heart is compared to the size of a fist, the fish have no such possibility. But as is known from the lessons of biology, in small fishes the heart is only a few centimeters in size. But in large representatives of the underwater world the organ can reach even twenty to thirty centimeters. Such fish include catfish, pike, carp, sturgeon and others.

Where is the heart?

If someone cares about the number of hearts in a fish, we will immediately answer - one. It's amazing that this question can arise, but as practice shows, it can. Very often, when cleaning the fish mistresses do not even suspect that they can easily find the heart. Like a human, the heart of the fish is in the anterior part of the body. If, to be more precise, it's right under the gills. On both sides of the heart is protected by ribs, like ours. In the figure, which you see below, the main organ of the fish is designated number one.

Structure

Given the peculiarities of the respiration of fish and the presence of their gills, the heart is arranged differently than in terrestrial animals. Visually, the heart of the fish looks like ours in shape. A small red pouch, with a small pale pink sack from below, is this organ.

The heart of cold-water aquatic inhabitants has only two chambers. Namely the ventricle and the atrium. They are located in close proximity, and to be more precise, one above the other. The ventricle is under the atrium and has a lighter shade. Fish have a heart, consisting of muscle tissue, this is due to the fact that it performs the role of a pump and is continuously reduced.

Circulatory system

The heart of the fish connects to the gills with the help of arteries, which are located on either side of the main abdominal artery. It is also called the abdominal aorta, except for this, from the entire body to the atrium are thin veins, which flow blood.

The fish's blood is saturated with carbon dioxide, which must be processed as follows. Passing through the veins, blood enters the heart of the fish, where it is pumped through the arteries into the gills with the help of the atrium. Gills, in turn, are equipped with a set of thin capillaries. These capillaries pass through all the gills and help quickly transport the pumped blood. After that, it is in the gills that carbon dioxide is mixed and changed to oxygen. That's why it's important that the water where the fish live is saturated with oxygen.

Oxygen blood continues its journey through the body of the fish and is sent to the main aorta, which is located above the ridge. Many capillaries branch from this artery. In them, the circulation of blood begins, or rather, the exchange, because, as we remember, blood returned from the gills saturated with oxygen.

As a result, the replacement of blood in the body of fish. Blood from the arteries, which usually looks saturated red, changes to blood from the veins, which is much darker.

Direction of blood circulation

Fish heart chambers are the atrium and ventricle, which are equipped with special valves. It is at the expense of these valves that blood flows in only one direction, excluding reverse casting. This is very important for a living organism.

The veins send blood to the atrium, and from there it flows to the second chamber of the heart of the fish, and then to the special organs - the gills. The last movement occurs with the help of the main abdominal aorta. Thus, you can see that the heart of the fish makes a lot of endless cuts.

Heart of cartilaginous fish

This particular class of fish, which is characterized by the presence of the skull, spine and flat gills. The most famous representative of this class can be called sharks and rays.

Like their uncreate congeners, the heart of cartilaginous fishes has two chambers and one circling circle. The process of exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen occurs in the same way as described above, with only a few features. These include the presence of a spray, which helps water enter the gills. And all because the gills of these fish are located in the abdominal region.

Another distinguishing feature is the presence of an organ such as a spleen. It, in turn, is the terminal stop of blood. This is necessary to ensure that at the time of special activity, a rapid feeding of the latter into the desired organ occurred.

The blood of cartilaginous fish is more saturated with oxygen, due to the large number of red blood cells. And all because of increased activity of the kidneys, where they are produced.